Posted on 01/10/2006 10:06:56 AM PST by Terriergal
LAKE FOREST, Calif. - This week, it was the Rose Bowl players' breakfast. This month, it will be the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Then the President's prayer breakfast in Washington, followed by an entertainment industry conference in Los Angeles.
Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist preacher's son from tiny Redwood Valley, Calif., is much in demand these days.
The founding pastor of the Saddleback mega-church south of Los Angeles and the author of the best-selling The Purpose Driven Life, Warren is perhaps the most influential evangelical Christian in America.
With his book - the best-selling hardback nonfiction book in the nation - and Purpose-Driven Life videos and 40-day Bible study plans, Warren has created an unparalleled international network of millions of individuals and 400,000 churches, spanning faiths and denominations.
Now he wants to use his growing influence - and wealth - for an ambitious global attack on poverty, AIDS, illiteracy and disease.
"The New Testament says the church is the body of Christ, but for the last 100 years, the hands and feet have been amputated, and the church has just been a mouth. And mostly, it's been known for what it's against," Warren said during a break between services at his sprawling Orange County church campus.
"I'm so tired of Christians being known for what they're against."
Fresh from preaching to 38,000 congregants during Christmas week services, Warren was looking to the future by invoking the past.
"One of my goals is to take evangelicals back a century, to the 19th century," said Warren, 51, shifting painfully in his chair because of a back sprain suffered during an all-terrain-vehicle romp with his 20-year-old son, Matthew. "That was a time of muscular Christianity that cared about every aspect of life."
Not just personal salvation, but social action. Abolishing slavery. Ending child labor. Winning the right for women to vote.
It's time for modern evangelicals to trade words for deeds and get similarly involved, Warren contends.
At the end of his second sermon last Sunday, he reminded his largely affluent Orange County audience: "Life is not about having more and getting more. It's about serving God and serving others."
That, simply put, is his message. Give your life to God, help others, spread the word. It is the same message that Christians have been preaching for 2,000 years. Warren has updated the language, added catchphrases and five-step guides, but he readily admits "there is not a new idea in that book."
The Purpose Driven Life has sold more than 24 million English-language copies since 2002, with millions more in other languages. It has been popular with Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, with pastors and priests using it as a Bible-study handbook.
The book figured prominently in a hostage drama in Georgia last March. Ashley Smith, held by alleged Atlanta courthouse killer Brian Nichols, said he released her after she gave him methamphetamine and read to him from the book.
Warren "is able to cast the Christian story so people can hear it in fresh ways," said Donald E. Miller, director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. He is "a very important figure in evangelical Christianity," part of a "trend we'll see more of," Miller said, citing Warren's independence, social activism, informality and ability to reach across racial and national lines.
"The Gen X-ers are sick and tired of flash and hype and marketing," Miller said. "The soft sell of a Rick Warren is far more attractive to them than a highly stylized TV presentation of the Christian message."
Among evangelicals, Warren is more influential than better-known and more-divisive figures such as religious broadcasters Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell or radio psychologist James Dobson, and is often seen as the heir to the Rev. Billy Graham as "America's pastor."
Scott L. Thumma, a professor of the sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary and the author of a forthcoming book on mega-churches, said polls of church leaders often put Warren in first or second place among most-influential evangelical leaders.
"And one of the interesting things is that he crosses boundaries... . He's not just respected by the evangelical world but by many outside that world," Thumma said.
In North Philadelphia, the Rev. Herbert Lusk, the former Philadelphia Eagles running back who is pastor of the Greater Exodus Baptist Church and a prominent supporter of President Bush, brought Warren to town in November to raise money for aid to Africa. Lusk also tutored many of the Eagles' players and coaches in the Purpose-Driven Life program last year.
Lusk said Warren "took the principles that we preach about every Sunday and packaged them in a way that are palatable for Christians and non-Christians."
"The guy is a preacher's preacher... . He's the leading evangelical in the world, unquestionably," Lusk said.
Broadly defined, evangelicals are Christians who have had a personal or "born-again" religious conversion, believe the Bible is the word of God, and believe in spreading their faith. (The term comes from Greek; to "evangelize" means to preach the gospel.) The term is typically applied to Protestants.
Millions of Americans fit the definition, although estimates vary on exactly how many. Forty-two percent of Americans described themselves as evangelical Christians in a Gallup poll in April, while 22 percent said they met all three measures in a Gallup survey in May. The National Association of Evangelicals says about 25 percent of adult Americans are evangelicals.
Evangelicals are often equated with fundamentalists or the religious right, which annoys Warren. Although he's politically conservative - opposing abortion and gay marriage and supporting the death penalty - he pushes a much broader agenda and disdains both politics and fundamentalism.
Warren is a friend of President Bush and a repeat visitor to the White House. But he also met for several hours at Saddleback last month with Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, to discuss issues such as poverty and the environment.
"I'm worried that evangelicals be identified too much with one party or the other. When that happens, you lose your prophetic role of speaking truth to power," Warren said. "And you have to defend stupid things that leaders do."
"Politics is always downstream from culture. I place less confidence in it than a lot of folks. I don't think that's the answer... . Politics is not the right tool to change the culture."
With his goatee and penchant for Hawaiian shirts and colloquial language, Warren embodies a laid-back approach to worship that resonates with Americans who have little allegiance to formal denominations or rituals.
His 120-acre hilltop campus, with palm trees, waterfall and meandering brook, is a kind of religious theme park, where worshipers meet in different buildings to suit their musical preferences, while watching simultaneous video feeds of Warren preaching at the main worship center.
Warren's father and grandfather and great-grandfather were all preachers. He followed their path by starting Saddleback in 1980 with his wife, Kay, and a congregation of seven. His ministry prospered in booming Orange County, as Warren went door-to-door, asking residents what they'd like in a church. For 15 years, he and his growing flock were nomads, meeting in schools, homes and other buildings. Construction started on the current campus in 1995, and Warren now has 80,000 names on Saddleback's rolls. Saddleback is a a Southern Baptist church, but it doesn't advertise the fact.
As the money has rolled in from his book, Warren said he has given most of the millions to the church and the three social-service foundations he has established. He stopped taking his $110,000 annual salary and repaid the church for his 25 years of salary since its founding. He and his wife became "reverse tithers," he said, keeping 10 percent of their income and giving away the rest, including $13 million in 2004.
This month, he is leading a trip to Rwanda, to train pastors and distribute medicine and money to battle AIDS and other diseases. It's part of what he calls his global PEACE plan (Plant a church, Equip leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick, Educate the next generation).
Last month, he launched the first major evangelical effort to battle AIDS, convening a three-day conference at Saddleback to mobilize American Christians to help AIDS victims and raise money to fight the disease. Part of the battle for Warren is overcoming resistance from evangelicals who view AIDS as strictly a gay disease or even as divine retribution for immoral behavior.
Warren said he sees religious institutions as more powerful forces than governments for solving the world's problems.
"I would trust any imam or priest or rabbi to know what is going on in a community before I would any government agency."
But, powerful as churches can be in working for the powerless, they can't succeed without governments and nongovernmental organizations, Warren said.
Warren predicts that fundamentalism, of all varieties, will be "one of the big enemies of the 21st century."
"Muslim fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, secular fundamentalism - they're all motivated by fear. Fear of each other."
ONLINE EXTRA
To read the rest of the series on the evangelical movement by Paul Nussbaum, visit http://go.philly.com/religion
A service, not services. But yes, they did provide an opportunity to worship on the Lord's Day.
I say to Rick:
Matthew 7:1-3 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain
Matthew 7
1Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Some of his statements (if they are true) are really beyond the pale for a "non-denominational" Christian minister. For instance: "But, powerful as churches can be in working for the powerless, they can't succeed without governments and nongovernmental organizations." As if God's will is dependent upon Government intervention.
Being one of those people on the other end of your defense of Warren, and knowing these things about him, I appreciate your saying this.
Non-denom. The leadership and many of the current members are hold-overs from a mainline, conservative Church of Christ. A core group of leaders supported a massive change in doctrine about fifteen years ago, turning away from what the current remnant considered to be destructive Church of Christ doctrine. The church leadership is almost exclusively left-leaining, politically and socially, which is odd considering how conservative their theology is. Or was. It seems their politics are increasingly coming out in theology. Hard to separate those two.
We cut down from 3 to 2. I'll give them credit for going ahead and making the opportunity available to the congregation.
There is enough legitimate ammo out there to use against the market driven churches that we don't have to reach on issues like this.
Many of the "Megachurches" did not hold services on Christmas Day, so their production crews -- oops -- er, staff -- could spend some time with their families. Forget that it was the Celebration of the Birth of Jesus Christ -- the reason for having services in the first place.
First, I need you to know that I don't have a strong opinion on this guy one way or the other. Second, big churches give me the willies. I just do not like them.
That said, I went to the link in #13 and was hard pressed to find anything really all that offensive. Of course, I believe that if a person who is not Jesus does enough talking and is quoted enough, he will say things I disagree with. Sometimes it is becuase we disagree, and sometimes it is because He didn't say what he meant clearly enough for the quote to bring the full meaning of what he said.
Go to an ex-mormon site and they are rife with severely damning quotes from the mouths of mormon leaders. But I saw nothing even close to a smoking gun here. Some were marginally questionable, and I would like to know the context of the quote, but I read through a LOT of quotes there and didn't find anything that would cause me to run away screaming HERETIC.
Again, I am no apologist of this guy and anytime people seem to be worshiping a particular man other than Christ, I get real nervous. But if I was given that list of quotes and was on a jury, I could not find him guilty of what so many here are shooting for. I just am not seeing it - yet.
Then again, I pride myself on my Skynard licks! 8^>
We got our copy to read from the library. We were happy to take it back after reading about a third of it and delighted we didn't purchase it.
Why would such a man do this while knowing it will cause turmoil and division in many established congregations?
And why would this so-called man of God prepare his trainees to deal with the "resisters" at their respective churches and find pleasure in driving people from their long time church homes?
If you see this as a righteous thing and the act of a good man, I'm perplexed.
That is just one example. We could spend the next week on his use of many Bibles, but mostly "The Message", in order to make Scripture translate to what Rick Warren wants it to say.
Perhaps your time with him preceded where he is today, but I truly do not believe his first desire is to humble himself before God Almighty.
But again, like an activist judge, you're adding something that is not written in scripture.
It doesn't say the body rotted. And besides, if it did, it wouldn't fall headfirst as described in Acts.
In addition the version in Acts states "Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity". Judas threw the 30 pieces of silver back at the priests in Matthew. Yet with the same money, "he" purchased a field. Not the priests. Judas.
...Could be a first century colloquialism, meaning "bought the farm"....
He's concerned about AIDS but doesn't mention abortion? Is this guy a Christian or a Hollywood elitist?
Wayoflife.org has a page with a "church finder" on it. It has conservative churches listed from all over the US. :-)
There are actually several large fundy baptist churches in the US. :-)
Next he chastises the modern church for not getting involved in "social action" like abolishing slavery and child labor, but he refuses to recognize that the fundamentalists he detests are the ones who are on the front lines in the war against Abortion, a war he does not appear to be all that concerned with.
Rather than focusing his efforts on his own church and problems he can actually solve with his church's influence, instead he seems to be interested in global concerns as if the wealth of his church is sufficient to solve problems that all the money in the world has been unable to solve up to the present. There are plenty of ministries that are doing that work. Rather than transforming his ministry into a "purpose driven" "World Vision" organization, he should simply encourage his flock to support World Vision.
I think Warren stepped on the wrong toes when he went after the fundamentalists. I number myself among them. I may not agree with all of them theologically or soteriologically, but I admire their zeal and their unwavering committment to the gospel of Christ.
/rant
Rick Warren has labeled fundamentalist Christians who believe the following as the enemy.
Inerrancy of the Scriptures
The virgin birth and the deity of Jesus
The doctrine of substitutionary atonement through God's grace and human faith
The bodily resurrection of Jesus
The authenticity of Christ's miracles (or, alternatively, his premillenial second coming)
That means he is NOT one of the "good guys but a wolf in sheeps clothing.
LOL! No, just four on Sunday, two on Saturday. They held several in the week running up to the 25th.
I know, I was in the orchestra when I attended there. Thirteen Christmas services takes a toll on the lips. :-)
Inerrancy of the Scriptures
The virgin birth and the deity of Jesus
The doctrine of substitutionary atonement through God's grace and human faith
The bodily resurrection of Jesus
The authenticity of Christ's miracles (or, alternatively, his premillenial second coming)
What's so wrong with those beliefs?
Ooh. touche! ;-) (throw their misinterpretation of that verse right back at em!)
Including, all too often my friend, here on FR..........much to my chagrine. Sigh..............
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